Museum of fine arts, Lons-le-Saunier

Established in 1817, the Lons-le-Saunier Museum of fine arts is housed in a wing of what is now the town hall.  Its collections comprise two sections: sculpture on the ground floor and paintings on the first floor.

The sculpture section centres around an eighteenth/nineteenth century collection (J.-J. Caffieri, A. Etex, M. Claudet). A special place is also reserved for the sculptor Jean-Joseph Perraud who bequeathed his studio collection to the museum.  Among his most prestigious pieces, we might mention L’Enfance de Bacchus (Bacchus’ childhood) and Le drame Lyrique (Lyrical drama).  The painting section is rich in major works from the Nordic school (P. Brueghel le Jeune, P. II Casteels, A.P. van de Venne), Italian school (P. della Vecchia, L. Giordano, P. Negri) and French school. The latter in particular includes the paintings of François-André Vincent, Pierre le Mettais and five paintings by Gustave Courbet and works of Auguste Pointelin, a Comté landscape artist who deserves to be rediscovered.